Category: Spice Up Your Life

It was 1897 in LeRoy, N.Y. A carpenter by the name of Pearle Wait and his wife, May, were experimenting with how to preserve a cough remedy and a laxative tea. One of their experiments included using gelatin, and while they didn’t necessarily find a way to preserve their medicines, they did succeed in making history. The fruit-flavored dessert they […]

For me, it seems like I can tolerate winter until Christmas is over, but after that, I’m ready for it to just move on. The cold and the dark just aren’t my scene. That being said, I do love cold-weather food, and not long ago I had a major craving for stew, so I found the delicious recipe I’m sharing […]

I know. I know. We’re done with the holidays, you’re still trying to avoid all the snacks and goodies that piled up in your house, and here I am shoving a delicious pie recipe right in your face. But hear me out on this one: We’re all going to have to wean ourselves off the sweet stuff of the holidays […]

As a college student, one of the staples in my dorm room was a big can of powdered hot chocolate. No matter what the weather was, I enjoyed relaxing with a big mug of steaming hot chocolate when I was feeling stressed. I still love the stuff and make it quite a bit this time of year. One thing I […]

Before I consider buying a cookbook, I turn to several recipes in it and assess whether I think I can actually get my hands on the ingredients inside and if the processes for cooking are more complicated than I want to do or take lots of specialized equipment. Unless I think I can accomplish it with foods from the hometown […]

I know a lot of people despise making pies, but I’ve grown to really enjoy it. This year, I made a total of six pies for Thanksgiving to share with my family and Joey’s throughout the weekend. I normally try making something new every year along with the old favorites, because I like experimenting. My brother-in-law was the catalyst for […]

Well, it seems Kansas decided to skip right over autumn weather and jump straight into being cold. The lower temperatures made me immediately wish for some warmer-weather flavors. Specifically, I became completely fixated on a recipe for strawberry “brownies” I found online. To be fair, these are brownies in texture only. There’s no chocolate or “brown” involved in these. It […]

We’re quickly approaching the time of year when local kitchen warriors don their aprons and get ready to camp out in front of the oven for hours at a time. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas meals and baking, many of you will find yourself spending a lot more time in the kitchen during the holiday season. I often struggle during this […]

Clear back when I was in grade school, there was an obsession among my classmates with a candy called a Sour Warhead. If you’re not familiar, it’s a small hard candy that is sweet but coated in some of foulest, sourest powder ever created by humanity. I hated the things. If I was given one, I would run it under […]

One of the things they don’t tell you about getting married is that it will change your diet. When we got married, Joey had to give up eating tomatoes as often as he’d like because I’m allergic to them and have to watch my intake if I don’t want to suffer from hives afterward. I gave up eating a lot […]